POSTINGS

POSTINGS; Four on the Block: Gaveling a Sale Without a Broker

By LISA FODERARO

Published: May 31, 1987

Sanford Sirulnick, the owner of more than 50 buildings with some 5,000 units in New York City, likes to recount the incident last fall that led him to consider the merits of selling buildings at auction.

He was in contract to buy a building in Forest Hills, Queens, for $1.05 million when the Nassau County Surrogate, who was handling the trust for the seller and was unaware of the building's market value, ordered a public auction, using Mr. Sirulnick's contract price as the minimum bid. The property was bid up to $1.87 million and went to another buyer. ''I saw a new way of doing business, another means of making a deal,'' Mr. Sirulnick said. Now he is getting ready to put four occupied residential properties that he owns up for auction on June 25, with a combined minimum bid of $27.75 million. ''I have not heard about a private auction for residential property in New York since the late 1950's,'' he said. ''We're really treading on new territory. We're taking a chance.''

Regardless of how much the buildings are sold for, P. Sirulnick & Son of Cedarhurst, L.I. - the family real-estate business that dates from 1909 - will realize substantial savings by not having to pay a broker's fee, which, for this amount of property, would be in excess of $1.25 million. The auctioneer's fee, by contrast, is only $1,000. ''I'm very aware that certain brokers are not speaking about me in glowing terms,'' Mr. Sirulnick said.

The apartment buildings up for sale are at 110-31 73d Road in Forest Hills, 2195 East 22d Street in the Sheepshead Bay section of Brooklyn and 74 West 38th Street and 255 West 84th Street in Manhattan. The four properties represent about 5 percent of the value of the Sirulnick inventory, which is made up entirely of apartment buildings. Mr. Sirulnick said he plans to branch out and purchase an office building with the proceeds of the auction.